I'M in the final year of an English degree and over the past few weeks have been juggling work with doing a dissertation.
My dissertation was on the Femme Fatale in Victorian literature. In my studies I had to delve into what this woman represented in the era. Much of what she meant to the male authors of the time mirrored the rise of the strong, free, independent and wilful new woman with an opinion of her own. They therefore depicted her as a vampire, or a murderous vixen and a cold, cruel, heartless creature capable of the most despicable acts.
The men of the time hated the rising confidence and the fighting spirit of certain Victorian women – so used were they of the gentle and submissive ladies who spent her days sewing in the drawing room and looking pretty. Women of the era were most certainly second class citizens, were not allowed to vote, have an opinion or pursue any interests – educational or otherwise – outside the domestic sphere. Their opinions didn't count and they were regularly patronised and even locked up for being hysterical. They were there to look pretty and serve their men.
That was the 1800s and although times have changed dramatically, I find that every time Donald Trump opens his mouth to say anything, we go back a few decades and I hate that my daughter is growing up in a world where the leader of the free world – a shallow man who is unfortunately no stranger to our TV screens and thinks so little of women beyond their appearance – is given a platform to air those opinions that could shape impressionable minds.
A fortnight ago, Donald Trump led the British Prime Minister Theresa May out of the Oval Office by the hand like some manner of formal date. Whatever the thinking was behind this action – I'm presuming he is in 'be nice to women overdrive' after abandoning Melania on the steps of the White House – he made her look like an inferior and weak woman.
A week later he reportedly sent a memo around requesting that female White House staff 'dress like women' which resulted in a social media backlash that saw female astronauts, policewomen, army personnel, surgeons and lawyers post selfies of themselves at work with the hashtag #DressLikeAWomen.
Throughout his campaign he has reinforced ancient notions that women are just there to be looked at, objectified and worse, that they are property of men, and that their opinions are worthless. He has criticised their looks, and called various women fat, pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.
In a 1994 interview with ABC News, Trump gave his take on married life. He was married to Marla Maples at the time. He said: “I have days where, if I come home — and I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist – but when I come home and dinner's not ready, I go through the roof.” In the same interview he frowned upon women getting ideas above their station, saying: “I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. Unfortunately, after they're a star, the fun is over for me. It's like a creation process. It's almost like creating a building. It's pretty sad.”
One could be forgiven for thinking we were back in the Victorian era. This is the man in one of the highest positions in the world, a man who is, whether we like it or not, highly influential. A generation of children will grow up being fed his idiotic, misogynistic ideas through the big box in the living room, or the radio on in the car going to school or through their friends talking in the playground.
A US-based report released last week highlighted the fact that girls as young as six believed that brilliance was a male trait.
Writing in the Journal Science, researchers from three American universities carried out tests with 200 boys and 200 girls to investigate their ideas on intelligence and ability. In the various tests girls aged six associated brilliance more with their male counterparts than themselves.
It's obvious that these notions are prevalent in our children's minds from a young age and people like Trump will do nothing to stamp them out.
We can't allow it to go on. We must make our daughters fearless and unafraid to challenge these perceptions at every turn, we must teach them that they are as intelligent and fierce and as capable as their male counterparts. We must teach them to love other people regardless of their gender, their religious beliefs or sexual orientation. We must teach them to reach out to those in need, to stand against those who wish to build walls and to be a champion for humanity.
We must continue to be strong women who raise strong daughters, while teaching our sons the right and proper way to treat females. And we must impress upon our daughters that they can do anything a man can do, even change the world.
